Review of Persuaders!, The: Volume 3

Introduction

The Persuaders. One- Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis), a street smart, self-made millionaire from the Bronx. The other Lord Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore), an English aristocrat who, is wealthy but bored and like Danny craves adventure and excitement. Opposites brought together by “the judge” they move throughout the capitals of Europe working together to seek justice in an unjust world.

Episodes include:

Episode 7: Powerswitch
Danny and Brett are plunged into deep water when a body of a beautiful girl is found floating in a Cote d’Azure bay. There are sinister implications for the Persuaders when it is discovered she has been murdered.

Episode 8: The Time and the Place
Danger awaits Danny when he discovers a mans body nearby the broken down car of a pretty girl who he has stopped to help.

Episode 9: Someone Like Me
Danny has to deal with two Brett Sinclair’s, but which is the real one? Who is the impostor and is there something more serious at work here?

Episode 10: Anyone Can Play
There is a case of mistaken identity when Danny finds he can’t lose at the roulette table at the gambling seaside resort of Brighton. Unexpectedly Danny has become a communist network’s paymaster and Brett is inevitably involved as the plot thickens.

The boys return in their third escapade on DVD featuring all new outfits, extra smarm and the usual shirt busting humour. The glamorous locations span from the beautiful bays of the Côte d’azure to the wonders of the gambling seaside resort of Brighton. Yeah that’s what I thought. I couldn’t see two international playboys going to Brighton either. But there you go.
Anyway the Persuaders get up to their usual tricks as they fight crime for the Judge and come up against other well known British actors in small bit parts. The highlight of the disk has to be a scene where Danny walks in a dance studio and comes across Lionel Blair who is instructing a troupe of young women who are dancing in their pants. Now I dare anyone to beat that.

Video

Like the other DVD’s the picture varies from really quite dirty and grainy, (usually the titles sequence and process shots) to a picture that is suprisingly clean with only the odd bit of dirt or dust. Picture detail is quite good at times especially on the close-up head shots, but the majority of the picture remains a little too soft hampering the otherwise decent detail levels.
Colours are somewhat washed out and there is a little grain evident ,but altogether the picture is very watchable with no real compression problems.
With all these made for television programmes you have to take into consideration the age and the limitations of the source material. Given that this series is 30 years old it’s actually looking quite good and perfectly acceptable.

Audio

Audio is presented in mono which you would expect and while not exactly the most exciting soundtrack you’ll ever hear it does its job well. Dialogue is clear with no distortion and although maybe sounding a little compressed its perfectly fitting for the program.

Features

In the extras department we have a couple of rare trailers made for the feature length films of ‘The Persuaders’ and were cut together from existing episodes. Video quality is fairly poor and the editing is really quite rough.
A memorabilia gallery has pictures of various Persuaders comic books and a stills gallery.
Menus are themed with suitable pictures from the series and a small amount of animation with the theme tune playing in the background.
Each episode has 8 chapters and are subtitled.
Included is a small booklet which has details of music, locations, filming dates and an extract from the shows 1971 publicity booklet.

Conclusion

While not exactly pushing the DVD boundary’s this disk offers good value for collectors of the series with the four episodes available, but extras still remain a little weak with little interest even for fans. Audio/video quality remain perfectly acceptable and the series probably hasn’t looked better.
Casual viewers may want to look before they buy, as the Persuaders, as with other ‘classic’ series may not be your cup of tea.